Hinges have been widely used in various electronic devices and the conventional hinges that are currently available often comprise a support structure forming a sleeve to rotatably accommodate a shaft of a pintle structure. An example application of the hinges is a notebook computer, which includes an enclosure and a liquid crystal display coupled together by a hinge to allow enclosure of the notebook computer to be flipped up or closed down. Other applications of the hinge includes mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), inspection/testing equipment, and positioning systems, which often incorporate a hinge or hinges.
A conventional hinge comprises a carrier member having an edge forming a sleeve structure to receive a shaft of a pintle structure therein. When the shaft of the pintle structure is operated and rotated, a rotational friction induced between an inside surface of the sleeve and an outside circumference of the shaft provides an operation torque for a subject device. To provide similar torque in both opening and closing the subject device to which the hinge is applied, the conventional hinge comprises forward-extending sleeve segment and a reversely-extending sleeve segment both mounted to the edge of the carrier member to form a dual-surrounding sleeve configuration.
To satisfy functional requirement of the hinges, a variety of designs for the hinges are known in the prior art references. An example of the prior art references includes U.S. Pat. No. 6,671,929, which discloses a hinge structure for a notebook computer, comprising two barrels coupled by a pintle. The barrel has a portion that is curved to form a collar for receiving and retaining the pintle. Further, U.S. Pat. No. 6,470,532 discloses a sleeve formed on a plate-like support and a board forming a bore is arranged beside the plate-like support. A hinge pin extends the sleeve of the plate-like support and the bore of the board. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,868,582, a computer hinge is disclosed, which comprises two stems each having an extension and coupled together by a sleeve. The extensions of the stems are respectively coupled to a computer and a liquid crystal display. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,711,782, a hinge that generates friction torques in opposite directions is disclosed, which comprises two fastening sections that are overlapped to enhance friction force.
A lot of known hinges having different structures are currently available in the market, but all these known hinge have certain drawbacks. Further, most of the known hinges consist of a support structure that is formed by stamping as an integral part. Further, the support structure forms a sleeve to receive a pintle therein to form a hinge. The hinge of the kind needs at least one support board that bears torque induced at connection of two members. Thus, the support board has to have a large support face. This makes the hinge occupying a great amount of space in a device in which the hinge is applied and also causes negative visual effect on the overall appearance.
Further, the sleeve is often mechanically tough in resisting deformation. Thus, conventionally, the pintle is coupled to the sleeve by forcibly fitting an end of the pintle into the sleeve, usually with the aid of properly arranged jigs, after the pintle is put in correct alignment with the sleeve. Such an assembling process is time-consuming and offers only very poor passing rate of the final products for damages are easy to occur in both the sleeve and the pintle in case they are not properly aligned or they are subject to incorrect assembling steps. This often leads to complete waste of the whole hinge.
Thus, it is desired to have a hinge that overcomes the above drawbacks of the conventional hinge devices.